


we'll be done in a turn of the earth

by Seebright



Category: Hyper Light Drifter
Genre: All Of Them Are They/Them, Angst, Angsty Implications, But Events In The Game Are Mentioned, Depictions of injury, Domesticity, Drifter Does Not Look Gift Horses In The Mouth, Drifter Has Weird Ideas About Fun Leisure Activities, Drifter Is Not Particularly Conscientious Of Others, Drifter Is Occasionally Introspective, Fluff, Guardian Is Adamant About Passable Bodily Hygiene, I Just Wanted To Give Them A Nice Day Alright, Mute Drifter, Mute Guardian, No Violence On Screen, Other, Specifically The Eastern Area, They Can Make Exceptions, To Their Detriment, Which Is Sort Of Gruesome, a lot of fluff, everyone is, however, mentioned illness, non-binary characters, some blood
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-26
Updated: 2019-08-26
Packaged: 2020-10-01 20:30:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,163
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20396143
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Seebright/pseuds/Seebright
Summary: The Drifter has had many different pains in their life, but this one is sweeter than the rest. This one makes them want to stay.





	1. born on the lake

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Drifter realizes something that hits a little closer to home. They make a snap decision and stick to it.

“I’ve known no losses.”

The sense of magnitude, the great keening wound of the East with its no-more folk, it wasn’t lost on the Drifter. But it was as a tree observes the chaos and brutality of life around its roots, they could only watch. The damage was done and all the mourning there was left was of a people they never knew, and of a place they’d never been.

The Drifter’s beetle-glinting eyes absorbed the light and glare, tracked the matching glints on the water below. The sun, as often it did, shone hot above, baking the metal of the Drifter’s helm and warming the dense fabric of their cloak, but the breeze was cooling and constant, filtering in through obligingly parted layers to carry away the heat that would be unbearable. But the air was not fresh.  
They sat down on the carved stone, warmed by the sun but comfortably so, covered here by a layer of soft moss, and stretched a leg out in front of them, propping up and leaning a shoulder on the other. Stopped moving as well as they could.

Behind them the Guardian stood vigil, their own helm tilted to regard the Drifter’s back peacefully enough. When the Drifter’s bot spelled out nothing more, they sighed hoarsely and went to sit by the water with them. 

They settled down more quietly than the Drifter would have expected, just muted rustling and a soft thump and grunt as they sat and draped their legs over the path ledge in a single smooth motion. It bothered them some, then, in a distant way they didn’t understand and couldn’t want to, that the reason they were surprised was because they had never seen the Guardian sit in their presence, and never once relax. 

The disquiet lessened when they turned and watched their companion slow into stillness just as they had. They liked the Guardian.

The corpses in the water bobbed gently, short white fur still in the equally still water, impossibly clear and so blue and deep. The breeze was iron as much as it was green growing things and wet stone. These had survived much and lost so recently. It was hard to reconcile, a localized atrocity that for the Drifter seemed on par with the crystal war, as gruesome and real as their dreams and the Titans.  
Yet the corpse was so clean, no blood and not yet rot. Less than a day, perhaps. The past was so close, but it was still the past, and they were as gone from their once-lives as old tattered skeletons posed in crystal, as the gem-memories that grew up again even once they had cut them down, the fearful people with guns, bodies long gone but whom the crystal remembered.

The dead in the water, for all they could have been almost alive, felt in their tranquility as long-dead as the crystal.

The beautiful stonework and colorful windows cut into scenes of a now-lost people, all the art and living, might as well have been abandoned a hundred years since as yesterday.

The Guardian’s little bot spelled out a short reply. The Drifter glanced up at the flash of light to read it.

“I’m sorry.”

It took the Drifter by surprise, as the Guardian so often did.

“Why?” For what final agony could there be but true loss, with death already so familiar?

They were so kind, they couldn’t wish this new hurt on the Drifter, not when they knew better than any the hurts they already bore. Many of those hurts, after all, they two shared.

The Guardian was still for a moment, then turned their horned helm until the Drifter could see the blue of their eyes, dimmer than they remembered in the gleam from the water, suited to shaded treecover just as well as brilliantly clear days. They wondered, suddenly, if the Guardian was on a precipice themself. If they had more of a kinship with the East-folk than the Drifter, in more than common familiarity.

“The world has been too unkind to you,” Was all the Guardian said, though.

The Drifter nodded, wrote a response. “And to all.”

“But you especially.” The Guardian persisted.

The Drifter sat silent, puzzling this over.

“Many know what makes loss.” The screen cleared and writing beamed anew as the Drifter watched. “You have something first.” The Guardian turned their face away, and the sun reflecting off of even the dull metal of their helm was enough to make the Drifter blink and duck out of the way.

“Have you never had anything?” The writing continued.

The Drifter’s eyes squinted in good humor, and they twisted around to exaggerate digging at their belt as though checking it was still intact. “I’ve got my sword and my cloak and my gun and,” 

They turned back to the Guardian as their bot’s holoscreen stuttered mid-glyph and stiffened, the flow of their words cutting off abruptly. And you. And you? 

Something occurred to them, and a chasm opened in their chest not unlike death. But though they nearly expected their front to be slicked with pink, their body was as whole and comfortable as ever it had been, basking in the warmth and light, the illness a muted scratch. The Guardian, noticing the pause looked at them quizzically. 

Their chest was aching.

They had to hurry.

They had to wait.

They spent a moment staring into the Guardian’s face, tracing the shadows of their helmet, wrestling for a decision. 

“Why would you tell me?” Their writing pleaded as though the Guardian could take back their words, like it was the Guardian’s fault. They ached, their limbs were whole and their lungs quiet but the ache deepened still. Why remind them, why let them know, when they had been at peace? The Guardian was not cruel, so why?

They curled into a crouch and as the Guardian reeled from the change in their language, they too reeled and leaned into them, searching. They both froze. It was not in their nature to be still for long. Even if it were, it was all too short to be.

Around them, as always, uncaring, the day went on, the corpses slowly went to rot, the paddle-bugs splashed below, the breeze rustled their cloaks.

“I can lose you.” The words were as stark as the realization. 

The Drifter blinked and rewrote a section.

“I will lose you.”

The moment was present and pressing. Humidity brushed fingerlike in the breeze against the crests of their cheeks and began to cling to their clothes, pressed in and drawn out by the steady hand of the sun. It was so hot, the warmth a balm and unforgettable. So bright that for once very little of their friend, their dearest friend, was hidden in shadow. Naught but their face. 

The Guardian watched them closely, but not, they felt, as a foe or a threat. They felt no less safe than when they had turned their back to them, sat down before them, allowed them the chance to draw their sword without the possibility of escape. They felt something else though, something that ached at them more than their lungs or their death. 

They couldn’t turn away.

“Yes.” The Guardian’s bot told them as the Guardian themself leaned their helm forward the barest centimeter, and they were only a sparse handful of centimeters apart at all anymore, the Drifter realized. The message blinked and stayed.

The Drifter considered the message. They two were of few words, but the acceptance spoke that the Guardian, too, would one day feel their own loss. How overwhelming, after all this time, to be the loss felt. 

How wonderful. How unbearable.

The Drifter accepted the inevitability of their friend in the span of seconds, another corpse one day soon, different but so like the countless they had seen, are seeing, and will always see. But for now, they were together, and they were alive. And they could not afford to overlook that. They kept moving, they two. If they couldn’t die yet, to live is the only other option. Adaptation was the tool of their trade.

So, “Not yet though,” the Drifter defied.

The Guardian blinked. The weight on their shoulders, so akin to the Drifter’s, shifted. The Drifter could tell by the set of their eyes, how something in them seemed to ease. Their head tilted and their eyes narrowed, and the Drifter could tell they were pleased, even relieved, hopeful. It was lovely.

“If loss is inevitable, if it is forever, then we can see it when it comes.” More words than the Drifter had written all at once in a stretch of time comparable, to them, to the reach of eternity.

They tilted their head forward and their helm clicked against their Guardian’s.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrote this one once I'd just finished the Eastern area, though I edited it later. I felt pretty bad that you couldn't get to the otters in time. Oh well, ain't that just the way.


	2. and I don't want to leave

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Drifter appreciates it, really, but they would also like for them all to go to sleep.

It became a habit.

Often the Drifter wouldn’t think of the Guardian at all. They fought just the same, with the same rhythms, attacking and fleeing and defending and dying, jolting awake, dying again. Slowly but surely, they progressed. Tilted their head respectfully at corpses even as they took what they needed from their tattered pockets. Learned the patterns of dangers through a long series of agonized failures. 

Misstepped. 

But in the moments of quiet they did, gazing into the eyes of a long-bare titanic skeleton, listening to the wind high on mountain peaks, watching the shore days’ climb and just minutes’ fall below and wondering of futures, sitting in a patch of sunlight, for they did so love the warmth, among the flowers with the bloodied remnants of their success around them.

When the danger subsided, just for the now, and they slowed to lick their wounds and judge if jabbing a cure-all between their ribs was a necessary precaution, or if perhaps they could make it to the next one forgotten in a corner somewhere without costing a death, they wondered and worried and the ache returned. 

But by now they clutched at the ache with both hands, held it close and savored it, basked in it like they would the sun. It held meaning in a world bled dry of it and they would give everything to keep it. It reminded them that they were unlike the dry indifferentiable bones, for they were remembered and missed and loved. 

And what could they do, in the face of that, but to remember and miss and love in return?

They often skipped nights and meals, caught where the dying was often and all the rest they needed to fuel their persistence, their blood pushed back into their veins nearly as quickly as it fell and falling from deep wounds again just as fast. But equally often they found themself at an impasse, or perhaps the ache had crested in their time away, and they warped back to the waypoint just in front of the Guardian’s home.

The home was not occupied every time they returned to it, but there were always little signs of change. A new bot part on the shelf, cleaned for repair. Food that kept well, left on the table. A made bed. The Drifter never made the bed, preferring to see the evidence that the Guardian had returned safe before them in the neat folds and cleaned sheets.

And sometimes, like planets in orbit, their returns aligned. 

The Drifter swayed to their feet this time, disoriented from the healing and the warp-travel, and saw the lights on in their home glow in the dark as the flash of colors faded from their eyes. They unlocked the door and inside was the Guardian, peering blearily at the internals of a recovered bot. 

The corners of the Drifter’s eyes creased at the warmth of the ache and they strode across the small room to wrap their arms tightly around the Guardian’s shoulders, as the Guardian startled and relaxed in nearly the same movement. 

The Guardian, bot forgotten, turned in their chair to cocoon the Drifter in their arms. The Drifter buried their face in the warm fur of their cloak and sighed shakily.

For minutes they stayed like that, exhausted, taking comfort where for now it was offered.

The Drifter drew back only a hand’s breadth and gently tapped their helmet to the Guardian’s, stared unblinking with darkly weighted eyes underscored with sleepless smudges into the brilliant blue, like the unclouded sky or glowing crystal, of the Guardian’s. It was all that needed to be said or done. 

Satisfied, they leaned back and took one of the Guardian’s gloves hands to pull them to their feet.

They went easily, less due to the Drifter’s strength than their own willingness. But they did pause when the Drifter tried to tug them to bed, and the sleep they both needed.

Their bot, hovering always at their shoulder, lit up a screen.

“You’re not clean.” They punctuated the words with a quick glance up and down the Drifter’s form. 

The Drifter frowned in confusion and looked down at themself. Their blood was vanished as always, and they hadn’t killed anything particularly generous with its bodily fluids, and so were at least somewhat cleaner than usual. They peered back up at the Guardian questioningly.

“You smell like rot and sweat.” 

That was to be expected, they supposed, having fallen into more than a handful of piles of old bones, but the Guardian had never complained of the scent before. They sniffed experimentally at their outer cloak.

The Guardian, as best they could tell, rolled their eyes.

“Like rotten egg.”

Egg? Where - ah. Twice that day they had been knocked into broken and oozing egg remains up in the mountains. They must have gotten used to the smell, having carried it around for hours, amidst everything else. The Drifter shrugged sheepishly.

“Come,” The Guardian’s screen lit up. “We’ll clean you then sleep.”

The Drifter was struck by the alien impulse to pout. As it was, they narrowed their eyes and beat down the desire to collapse to the floor right there and let the Guardian take the bed, if they were so fussed about scent of all things, just to be resting quicker. They knew late nights were nothing new to the Guardian or to them, but the way the Guardian’s boots scuffed the ground more weightily than usual made their ache pierce.

But more than rest and with the understanding that the Guardian would be exactly as stubborn as they when they decided on a goal, they needed to be near them, to feel the Guardian’s breaths deepen and smooth, to press close enough to, if they held still enough, feel the grand beating of their heart. They supposed that with that logic, giving in was something of a win-win.

So they stood sulkily by as the Guardian, clearly exhausted hands never wavering, drew a tub of water from the tap and set it on the floor. They reached an expectant hand out to the Drifter.

They resigned themself and sat down across the tub from them and unfastened their outer cloak, handing it over. A drifter did not remove or leave their cloak except when absolutely necessary, but it felt as though the Guardian’s hands were as safekeeping as their own. It was probably a traditional faux pas of some sort, but they’d always cared little for those. 

The Guardian nodded and took it, dropping it in the water and grabbing a rough-bristled brush from a shelf. They sat beside the Drifter and began to scrub.

The Drifter watched with stinging eyes and noticed an opportunity.

When it seemed the Guardian was focused on their task, they sidled carefully closer and leaned bodily into their shoulder, held stiff as the Guardian used their other arm to scrub. If the Guardian minded, they didn’t write anything. The solid muscle clothed in their soft, giving cloak was a balm, drew the ache tight into their chest.

The Drifter rubbed their face against the fabric and closed their eyes.

Moments later, it seemed, they were nudged awake. How nice, to wake up gently without blood or fear.

The brightness of a message made them flinch, taking a moment to adjust before cracking open an eye.

“Next piece.” The Guardian’s writing said.

The Drifter yawned widely and accepted their fate. They clumsily pushed at their second cloak, hiking it over their head and more or less shoving it into the Guardian’s face in their efforts. They took it obligingly, though the Drifter caught their eyes narrowing at the stains crusting its edges.

They snorted in amusement and replanted their face in the Guardian’s shoulder. It was a surprise, then, when they were carefully pushed off. Before they could protest or crawl back, there was another message.

“This will go faster if you help.” The tilt of the Guardian’s head and the fond set of their eyes softened the words.

The Drifter supposed it would, and nodded, sitting back on their haunches and yawning again as they untied their belt and wriggled out of the next layer, left now in their shirt and pants, shoes and helmet, their gloves, and their bracers. To be fair, the grey fabric was stained by mud and something sticky and black, probably from a point at which they drifted into a wall at full speed and were sent tumbling. They thought they remembered that, but they’d also hit their head shortly after, so the memory was vague.

They dunked it in the cloudy, cooling water and scraped at it with their claws until it wasn’t sticky anymore and held it up for inspection.

The Guardian nodded their acquiescence and took it to be set over the drying rack with the Drifter’s cloaks.

The Drifter gestured down at themself with a dramatic splay of both hands when the Guardian turned back to them, glancing up for approval. The Guardian narrowed their eyes, deliberated, and sighed.  
“Good enough. We’ll get the rest later.” They began to remove the harder sections of their armor.

The Drifter got to their feet, grinning with their eyes, and made to climb into bed.

“Shoes.” The insistent blink of the Guardian’s word stopped them. The Drifter made a show of deliberately removing each boot, and raised an eyebrow, though the Guardian couldn’t see it.

“Anything else?” Their own display read.

The Guardian gave a breathy huff of a laugh and settled themself into the bed, pulling back the covers and opening their arms.

The Drifter climbed in gratefully and pressed themself tightly to the Guardian’s chest, welcoming the warmth after the slow creep of the night chill as the Guardian draped the blanket and their arm over the Drifter’s back. 

All was close and warm and soft, such a kind reprieve that it ached, but happily so, and pushed at their ribs. The Guardian’s scent surrounded them, and they pressed their covered face into the shoulder cushioning their head, still plush with their cloak’s fur lining. Though the Drifter’s own cloaks were drying in a corner, they felt as safe as though they were draped in them still. Safer.

A large hand gently smoothed down their spine, leaving a trail of warmth on the fabric of their shirt. The Drifter shivered and pressed against it, and it pressed back, tugging them closer and deeper under the covers. They went gladly, nudged their face into the Guardian’s throat and felt the thudding of their heart on their cheek. The ache soothed and forced its way deeper into their chest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one I wrote, also at work, just after finishing the North area. Funny, I didn't realize until just now that there's a chapter for each zone. Except the South. So far.  
Also, I can't imagine the Drifter smells particularly good after all they get put through.


	3. every eye on the coast evermore

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Drifter has a nice day. Something's wrong, but they won't think about it just yet.

They reeled back a few weak steps from the new corpse, greater in its magnitude than any of the other great foes they had faced. Finally. They laughed in exhilaration, though it only came out as a stuttering raspy breath through their grin. What a fight.

Perhaps it wasn’t right, but they so enjoyed fights like these. They felt unstoppable, the sick prickle of their lungs’ flesh curdling a faded memory to the heat and rush and skill, the deaths so quick and fast that they nearly got used to the vertigo of waking up. No future to consider, their drive and fears safeguarded behind the walls of the now, because everything had to come after this.

They were nearly sad to see their foe, who they fought for those unrelenting hours they picked themself up and threw everything against the challenge, fall at their feet. Watching themself improve and grow wise. Nothing got better but this, they thought as the fierceness faded and they were left only hurt.

It was inevitable though, and the surmounting had its own rewards. They eyed the corpse keenly.

This one was more familiar than the rest. They might have mistaken it for a drifter, a powerful, forceful drifter by the way it was covered and shielded, and by its sword. Though, no drifter was like this.

The Drifter pressed a hand to their most painful wound, gushing blood that dribbled down their side, flashed, and vanished nearly as soon as it started a pool on the ground, and took a few slow steps closer.

Not a drifter. Too many allies. Too bold, too loud, too slow. 

Though, they thought ruefully, feeling the wet and the rhythmic pulse of their spilling blood through their glove, not slow enough. 

They didn’t take the cloak, though they wouldn’t have gotten much use out of it at all, as crystal-torn as it was, nor did they take the helm or armor or sword. The corpse hadn’t been a drifter. But they did rifle through the recesses of its pockets, as was their habit, emerging victorious with a handful of gearbits. Something else glinted, caught their eye. A gun.

Too small for the corpse to have used. It pinged familiar to the Drifter, in an odd way they felt when they picked over the remains of those drifters before them. Perhaps it had been a trophy, then, of one less stubborn than they who had tried to beat down this foe before.

They took it and felt pleased and turned their face to what they had truly come for.

Another pillar reclaimed.

The warp home tasted like respite, and little of that was due to the reknitting of the torn hole in their abdomen, though they also appreciated that.

As usual they were quick to check their home for the Guardian. As usual, they found it empty. There was no particular evidence that they had been back recently, the bed still unmade, the table empty, the bots on the shelves unmoved. Oh, well. They had three pillars raised now. They felt, somewhere within them, that they were at the beginning of a calm. The calm before what, they couldn’t fathom, but among all the other things they didn’t know this one was particularly pleasant to accept, as it were.

They fished something edible down from a high shelf, at a level the Guardian would reach with ease, but they had to cling and climb to access. They didn’t give the placement a second thought, delighting instead in the taste of something sweeter than blood on their tongue.

Then, though the day was bright, they allowed themself to be exhausted and curled, fully clothed, into the bed’s rumpled sheets and let the weight of the battle and the exhaustion of healing press them swiftly into rest.

It was bright again when they woke, relaxed and warm and well-slept. Some awareness tickled at the back of their mind, something off-color, but something with stronger influence, this something nearly sympathetic, felt like they should wait. They followed the tug of their reflex and intuition in all things, and so with the day so bright and their lungs looser than they had been in some time, they took the hint.

It would be better to wait for the Guardian before tackling the South, anyway.

They got up, and though the last thing they had done before collapsing into exhaustion-fueled stupor was eat they found they were hungry again. The Guardian must have forgotten to get more supplies, a task that usually fell to them for their closer relations with the shopkeepers, for the house was down to its emergency stores.

It was, however, a beautiful day, and they were going to go enjoy it anyway, so they supposed they might as well try their hand at haggling too. They’d recently come into a fair few gearbits, after all. They would get the Guardian something good and hot to have when they got back.

They adjusted their cloaks, twisted around by their long rest, and checked their weapons and mask, and left.

Shopkeepers, they found, were not particularly easy to haggle with without a voice. With their bot’s holoscreen they blinked the price they thought what they had was worth insistently.

“I don’t know where you’ve come from, but here that all’s worth thrice as much.” The masked person narrowed their eyes at the Drifter, though in equal parts honest confusion as irritation, as though such an egregious mistake couldn’t be truly malicious.

The Drifter considered this and blinked the number up.

“That’s not going to be enough.” The shopkeeper sighed, drumming their claws on their table.

Another hesitant uptick.

The shopkeeper rolled their eyes, or at the least the way their head tilted suggested they had behind their mask.

“Listen, I’ve seen you with the Guardian. Give me that and half again and I’ll consider it only this once. You two live in that drifter house, just let them come grab supplies next time.” They suggested somewhat desperately.

The Drifter narrowed their eyes in suspicion, but the shopkeeper only seemed honestly annoyed. They decided to give them the benefit of the doubt and flashed the number on their bot’s screen. The shopkeeper nodded quickly.

They paid and left, taking a quick walk home to deposit their acquisitions on the kitchen table and swallow down their share, and left again.

What to do now, while they waited? 

They ventured into the drifting-shop on a whim, ignoring sidelong glances from the trainer while they taught a child, and stepped into the practice room. 

They had been meaning to improve their form, after all.

The speed and rush of the training was just the warm-up they needed and after accidentally terrorizing the shop’s inhabitants by skidding into the main room once or twice, they felt up to a little exploration.

Which led them, in eyeing the road to the South, to discover a path they hadn’t taken before. Glad to be distracted from the temptation to pick back up where they’d left off, a duty they knew loomed close overhead, they followed it.

There was a child in a field green and flowering, with curiously placed stone walls and paths about it. The person standing at the periphery of the field was watching the child with something approaching exasperation but seemed curiously pleased to see the Drifter.

That was unusual in and of itself, so they gladly listened to them explain what the child was doing, standing and scuffing the ground in boredom in such a seemingly random locale.

They stepped onto the field, and the child perked up immediately. They approached the energy-ball carefully sat dead-center and the child tensed. They gave the ball a tentative kick and the kid sprinted towards them and, hovering defensively about the ball, deftly hooked a little foot around the Drifter’s ankle as they startled backwards in response. The Drifter felt the world pull out from under them and fell jarringly to the grass, helm smacking against the dirt.

They stayed there a moment, more astounded than anything else, staring up at the clear sky. Then a fierceness not unlike that which carried them through their harshest battles sparked to life in their chest, and they climbed to their feet. 

The child was running across the field towards the Drifter’s goal, gleefully herding the ball. The Drifter felt the fierceness swell and pull a wide smile across their face, narrowing their eyes. They pulled out and ignited their sword and dashed after the ball.

It was more than a battle. This was war.

And a more joyful war the Drifter had never fought. Carefully fielding the playing ball with conscious strikes of their sword, drifting to get power behind their kicks, being shoved down and getting back up and pushed to the earth again. 

It was humbling, to be sure, but it was also a happier test of their skill than a fight proper. They didn’t die, not once, which was incredible and strange even as they understood that to be killed by something so innocuous was unlikely, even in this damned land. They weren’t even hurt beyond a few scraped knees and elbows and a bloody nose, hidden behind their cowl. And they were winded by the end, irritating their lungs, though not to bleeding, and making their overused muscles quiver. Death always left them exactly as they were before, healing always forced a surge of trembling energy through their limbs, being so happily exhausted was novel.

They were evenly matched, more or less, in the child’s skill and willingness to use any and all advantages, to the detriment of the Drifter’s shins, and the Drifter’s speed, dexterity, and most essentially their ability to jump back to their feet after a nasty spill.

It took a few full games for them to collapse, laughing their hoarse silent laugh, having lost every one.

The child, the perpetrator of their defeat, scampered over and held the ball, hovering over their shaking body as laughter burned their wet lungs with something like concern. They waved the kid off and stiffly pushed themself to their feet. 

Hobbling towards the path home, for the day had darkened while they played, they felt a tug at their cloak. They glanced over their shoulder to see the child trying to get their attention, their careful hand night and day to their ruthless playing field tactics. 

“Come back tomorrow?” The first words the child had spoken.

The Drifter smiled, but shook their head, and their bot played a video of the Guardian walking alongside them and an image of the path South. They had to go. Their time here was at an end. And if the Guardian had not reappeared by now, it would fall to them to get the ball rolling. Oh, they’d grumble about it, but they’d also understand their search wasn’t to be ignored too long.

The child’s eyes widened at the Guardian’s image, and they nodded and let go of the Drifter’s cape.

“Be back soon,” The Drifter wrote out, placing a hand on the child’s head momentarily. They turned and made their way to city center.

There, they watched again the Southern road. Beyond the city the trees were a red deeper than blood, and they could already make out the shapes of distant piles of mounted bones and beyond that, the jut of mountains.

They could wait no longer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok when I wrote this one I had just finished the West and had an inkling of the goings-on of the South area, a pretty strong idea of what Bad Sort of things would be happening, but no concrete spoilers. Knew it was gonna be bad, put it off by doing anything else and writing this. Shrug!

**Author's Note:**

> This bit I wrote when I'd just finished the East area off. I felt pretty bad that I hadn't gotten there in time to help the otter people, but ain't that just the way. Also I wrote this at work on my phone so if there are errors, that's what I'm blaming them on. The work and chapter titles are lyrics from The Ghost on the Shore by Lord Huron.


End file.
